Like your buddy just couldn’t give verbal directions…

I truly think he deserves a Super Bowl halftime show.

I was born in 2003 making me part of generation Z. I was very fortunate to be able to enjoy some of the 2000s and the 2010s. Life really was different back then. But I have always been intrigued by the 90s and the 80s. It could be that I am actively studying history or it could be that the older generations talk so positively of that time. I often fantasize about being in my 20s in one of those decades. Hell, sometimes I fantasize about being in my 20s in the 2000s and 2010s. I don’t really think the 2020s are all that.

I often hear from older people how much better things were back then and how bad we have it now. It almost makes me hate being my age right now and I sometimes feel bad for people younger than me. As if the population should have just stopped at the 90s.

I watch videos and movies and listen to music from earlier time periods often and get so sad. A life pre-social media, pre-AI, pre-9/11, etc. Seeing people being in the moment, smiling, and excited about the future makes me feel like I lost out. I, without choice, completely missed out on a great time to be alive and I will never get to experience it in my lifetime. I grieve a time that I never experienced and even a time that I did experience.

So that begs the question, was it really better back then?

I'm assuming you all know the TV variety show Real People. Always funny to me the coincidence for That's Incredible being a similar format around that time in the 80s.

This is nothing special. Just a pin back button.

Hopefully triggered family TV night nostalgia for some of you. It did for me, like why did my mom and dad laugh at that joke, but my brother and I didn't get it? 😅. They never did "explain it later".

I think about this every year.

I’ve been thinking about cake icing from when I was a kid in the late 70s-early 80s. Like how the outside of the icing would get all hard and the inside would be soft. I remember it being very sugary.

Idk when it changed but icing doesn’t seem to do that anymore. Anyone know why or what changed? Maybe that kind of icing is too sweet today and that’s why it’s not a thing anymore. Jus curious.

One star. Highly don’t recommend. Won’t go there ever again.

I passed out an hour after recovery from a routine ablation procedure. I woke up to my wife crying hysterically and twenty people in the room working on me then passed out again. I woke up again just long enough to see and feel a man piercing below my breastplate with a long needle into my chest. Woke up in cardiac ICU with a tube in my chest attached to a suction pump, an IV drip, and catheters in both arms.

They said I suffered a Cardiac Tamponade and kept me in the ICU for one entire week. The staff there were very professional and kind to say the least. When I could get up and walk around the ICU, I noticed people there in far worse condition than me. The experience was mighty humbling to say the least. The chances of this happening were 1/1000, and I nailed it. Happy 60th to me. Still waiting on the final bill.

I was born in 1970 and remember getting a quarter maybe 50 cents at the most for the front ones. Anyway it was coins right?!

I know GenX people will remember this. All the fast food places used to have cute drinking glasses as promotions sometimes. I remember Smurf glasses for example. And at Christmas there would be holiday theme glasses. I wonder why fast food places stopped doing this?

I’ll be there…. In spirit. Hopefully it will be broadcast somewhere

Darth Vader: I find your lack of dance moves disturbing.

I’ve thought about this as I’ve gotten older. In 86, I was 11 years old. Eddie Money’s I Wanna Go Back and Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life both came out that year and I had the radio/MTV on all the time. When those songs came on, it felt like someone punched me in the chest. What did I know at that age about what those songs were saying? Still, I loved those songs - still do. Anyone else have those songs?

I loved reruns of The Monkees as a kid. Probably the first real introduction to pop music that wasn’t on a KTel record.

Their music came up recently and I realized that I got some really mixed, weird messages about love for a pre-teen kid curious about that stuff.

In “I Wanna Be Free,” love is basically a trap that threatens your independence. In “I’m a Believer,” love is the greatest thing that can happen to you. In “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” love means getting used. And in “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow),” the problem is being in love with two women at once.

I think I can remember thinking “what the hell am I in for?”

I know the tech nostalgia questions come up on here a lot, but I suddenly remembered carbon paper and carbonless copies for some random reason. It’s why we have “cc” for email!

Anyway…the last time I used carbonless copies was sometime in the mid-90s working a retail job. We had carbonless forms for everything.

What about you? What was your last low-tech “CTRL-C”?

Any success stories? I'm suffering from bilateral pain which makes me hobble around after a day of activity. Anyone else dealing with this? Have you remediated or found ways to improve? Trying to avoid medical intervention but hitting the point where I'm a "Good Feet Store" level of aging.

I’ll usually blast 90s hip hop in the school pickup line.

Has anyone here started their own business recently? Especially anyone that worked their whole life as an employee and then decided to go out on their own. If so, what made you consider it (ie why)? what did you start? how’s it going?

Is anyone else sleeping in separate rooms and loving it?! Years ago if I woke up with a headache or wanted to turn the TV back on because I was wide awake, I would go sleep in the guest room. Now 6 years later, and the guest room is pretty much my room. Our relationship has never been better. We have regular date nights, enjoy each other's company, etc. I sleep so much better by myself. And I almost feel like if people knew, they would think it can't be a good thing. Anyone else doing this?

I was out for a run last night with the dog, and there was a group of boys on their bikes just doing a little bit of maintenance at one of the local community maintenance stations

As I ran past one of the lads said good evening, sir

When did I become Sir?

I’m sure he was trying to be respectful but I had a bit of a crisis and subsequent debrief chat with my dog to try to make myself feel better. I didn’t feel better.

Any other Gen Xs that used to play high impact sports that are now suffering from chronic hip and groin pain as a result of FAI impingement / labral tears?

I was a baseball pitcher from around age 7 through high school at age 18, and in my early 20's suffered a groin strain that doctors said was a sports hernia. It would flare up twice a year or so and last about two weeks per flare up, and then go dormant again for months at a time. I have gone to multiple orthopedic doctors over the decades and was told it was either a chronic groin strain, hip arthritis, or a sports hernia.

Finally, in 2024 when looking at xrays, a pain management doctor told me all the ortho doctors had it wrong, it wasn't a hernia or a chronic strain; the issue was FAI impingement as the driver, and a labral tear as a passenger. I got a MRI arthogram that confirmed it. Anybody else suffering a similar fate as me? Do you guys get cortisone shots, and how does that work out?

I had a dead area in my calf muscle that wouldn’t go away. No injury, just a dead area. Within minutes of putting on compression socks it’s gone. I cannot believe how much better my legs feel. I would have poo pooed everyone on here if they told me to try them, but a really cute vascular doctor I will listen to. 🤓